A ROAD-BOOK TO OLD CHELSEA

THE ROADS THAT LEAD TO CHELSEA.

Frontispiece.

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A ROAD-BOOK TO
OLD CHELSEA

BY

G. B. STUART

“By what means the time is so well-abbreviated I know not,
except weeks be shorter in Chelsey, than in other places!”

KATHERYN THE QUEENE.

Extract from a letter of Queen Katharine Parr to the
Lord High Admiral Seymour, written from Chelsea, 1547

WITH SKETCH MAP AND FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS

LONDON

HUGH REES, LTD.

5 REGENT STREET, PALL MALL, S.W.

1914

PREFACE

OF the making of books about Chelsea, may therenever be an end, so rich and unexhausted is ourhistory, so inspiring to those who labour in its service!Every year, as fresh records become accessible, Chelsea ispresented to us from some different standpoint, historical,architectural, or frankly human, and there is ever a welcomeand a place for each volume as it appears.

They are books full of research and of suggestion,illustrated by portraits and maps from rare sources, andclinching hitherto unsolved problems. They quickly becomeour library friends and companions, because, thoughsome of their matter may be familiar, each has, for its ownindividual charm, that personal outlook of its author whichexpresses, with wider and more resourceful knowledgethan ours, the love we all bear to our home by theriver.

It is because in love of our subject we and the greaterwriters are equal, that I dare to put forth a new Guide toChelsea; a little foot-page, a link-boy, a caddy if you will,just to show the way to strangers, to disembarrass them ofunnecessary impedimenta, to point out special places ofinterest which may be visited in a summer afternoon,within that charmed circle of our parish, where every inchis enchanted ground.

G. B. S.